All in All
by Kumogata
Summary: It was just a stupid argument. But when Axel winds up in an accident, Roxas wishes he could take it all back. AkuRoku, background Sora/Riku


This is my first go using this account. Enjoy!

(Disclaimer: None of the KH stuff belongs to me - I'm a penniless student!)

* * *

All in all, Roxas only really cried twice.

xxx

Roxas sighed, dropping the towel around his shoulders, his slightly damp hair hanging down slightly in his face.

He felt awful. He hadn't meant to get into an argument with Axel, but he had anyway, and since his boyfriend had stormed off two hour ago, he hadn't heard from him. He had had a shower once he reached the one-hour point to relieve some of the tension from his shoulders, and the aching from his head.

He reached out for the phone, but decided against it quickly. He'd just call Axel and end up either babbling like an idiot down the phone to him, or he'd start shouting at him again. He scowled at the phone momentarily, before he shuffled over to the bed and flopped backwards onto it, sighing as he did so. He hated fighting with Axel, but he couldn't help it. The man just wound him up so much.

He crossed his arms over his face and let out a long, shuddering breath.

Stupid Axel.

xxx

He was awoken by a hammering on his front door, and it took him a few moments to realise that he was still lying on the end of the bed, wearing only the sweat pants he had been wearing the night before. He got to his feet slowly, stretching out as he did so, before heading to the door.

They were both wearing police uniforms, the man and the woman at the door.

"Does the owner of a red Cortina live here?" the brown haired man asked, his face stony and impassive. The shorter blonde girl beside him had a serious expression on her face that didn't suit her in the slightest.

Roxas' heart clenched painfully as he looked between them – Axel owned a red Cortina. He loved it. He'd named it Martine and would sing to it lovingly as he washed it in the summer.

"Axel," he murmured. "My boyfriend. What's happened? What's wrong?" he asked, his voice rising slightly as he took a step forwards.

"There was an accident last night, about a mile from here. I'm afraid he's been seriously injured," the blonde girl said. "He's been taken to the hospital."

Roxas was vaguely aware of the sound of his own breathing, and the brown haired man asking if he was okay. Axel couldn't be injured, he just couldn't. He always said he was indestructible. He couldn't be hurt.

"We can take you to the hospital, if you'd like," he heard one of them say, but he couldn't figure out which one. He nodded, and made to leave the flat.

There was a soft, warm hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at the blonde girl. "Let's get you something warmer to wear, okay?"

Roxas looked down, and realised with a dull sense of surprise that he was only wearing the sweat pants he had put on that smelt like Axel, and one blue sock and one red one. He nodded, and let her sweep him back into the flat quickly, long enough for him to grab a jumper from the back of the sofa, and pick up his keys from the little table just inside the door, before he followed the brown haired man down the steps and to the police car that sat outside the building.

xxx

Looking back, Roxas soon realised that he remembered very little of the car ride to the hospital. He vaguely registered flashing lights and twisted scraps of red metal, and people gathered by the sides of the road as they passed down the only road that led out of the neighbourhood and towards the hospital.

The door he had been leaning on slightly opened and he looked up at the police officer, who offered him a hand, helping him out of the car. He stumbled past the man towards the entrance to the hospital, letting the blonde police officer gently put an arm around his shoulders and guide him through swinging doors and bright lights towards a small dark corridor.

Eventually, he found himself face to face with a woman in a white lab coat, her long brown hair held back in a braid.

"Is Axel okay?" The words tumbled out of his mouth so quickly Roxas was sure he'd have to repeat them, but the woman placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. Then he looked at her face properly.

Her delicate brows were knitted, her eyes heavy and ever so slightly guilty. Her thin lips were pressed together hard enough to turn the skin around them white. She opened her mouth to say something, but Roxas pushed past her and into the room behind her.

He wished he hadn't.

Lying on the only bed in the room was Axel. A thin blanket covered his skinny frame, and he could see a small patch of blood oozing from his red hairline onto the pale skin of his face, blurring the two colours together. But he was breathing, and no matter how bad he looked, he was still wonderfully alive.

There were tubes all around his face, and his left eye was swollen shut, Roxas noted as he drew closer. What he could see of Axel's chest was littered with scratches, and his hands were bandaged up. His leg was in a cast, the blanket carefully tucked in around it.

Bile rose up in his throat, followed swiftly by panic, and not knowing what else to do, Roxas turned on his heel and fled.

xxx

He sat for a while in the reception area of the hospital, drawn up onto the chair by himself, staring vacantly out over his knees. He felt cold and empty, as though someone had simply reached inside him and snuffed out the flame that was keeping him going.

"Hey," said a warm voice. He looked up to see the brown haired doctor, bending down over him slightly. "Is there anyone I can call for you?"

He opened his mouth, but shut it again quickly. All the people he would need were lying on a bed upstairs. He could have died. He still might. He shuddered at the thought. It couldn't possibly be true. He shook his head.

"Are you sure? Someone to take you home for a while? And then you can come back and visit later. We'll have someone contact you if there's any change in his situation."

I don't want to _go home_, he wanted to shout at her, brief irrational rage rising inside him to drown out the strange hollow feeling in his chest. And just as soon as it came it was gone.

"My brother," he said simply, and gave her Sora's phone number.

xxx

The doors burst open in a typically melodramatic fashion as Sora arrived at the hospital, followed closely by his ever-present boyfriend Riku, and he crossed the waiting room in a few long strides, gathering Roxas up into his arms as quickly and as tightly as he could, knocking him out of his hunched up pose.

He had listened to what the police had told him about Axel and the accident absently, and as he let Sora hold him, the brunet's breathing ragged and catching slightly, a little bit of what had happened that evening sunk in.

"Roxas, what happened?" Sora asked, sniffing slightly as he did so. His eyes were red around the edges and his face was slightly splotchy.

"There was an accident. Axel was driving, and he was going across the crossroads, and his car got hit from the side." Even to him his voice sounded empty and lacking, but he didn't care.

"Oh, Rox," Sora murmured. "Were you hurt?"

Roxas gave a brief, harsh bark of laughter, and Sora's eyes widened at him when he did so. "I wasn't in the car with him. We had an argument and he drove off and he didn't come back."

"Oh, Rox," Sora said again, reaching out to wrap his arms around his brother again, but Roxas squirmed away from him.

"It was such as stupid argument as well," he said, his voice rising hysterically. "I never wanted it to go that far, I tried to stop arguing with him, but he was just being such an _idiot_," he shouted, his cheeks flushed and his head spinning ever so slightly. The few other people in the waiting room looked up at him, but none were all too concerned. "I just want to tell him I didn't mean it," he said, his voice trembling dangerously. "I just want him to know that I love him."

"He did know, Roxas," Riku said from above them.

Roxas laughed again, this time more hysterically. "Do you know what the last thing I said to him was? I told him to get out of my house, and to come back when he got all of his shit sorted out."

"Roxas, it's not your fault," Sora cried. He reached out to grasp Roxas' chin, forcing him to look at him. "It was an accident."

"I know it's not my fault," Roxas spat. "Some jackass who doesn't know what a red light means, it's his fault. And that son of a bitch only has a broken leg, while my Axel is upstairs, almost _dead,_" he yelled, pushing Sora's hands away from him. He got to his feet and paced over to the other side of the room, before walking back again. For a few moments, he walked around the waiting room restlessly, not caring as the people in the room watched him, or as his brother let his boyfriend wrap him in his arms carefully.

"Come on, Roxas," Riku said eventually, reaching out to offer the younger man a hand. "Let's get out home, and we can talk there."

Roxas shook his head. "I wanna see him. I didn't see him properly earlier."

"Okay."

xxx

He still hadn't cried. Was it weird that he had just seen his boyfriend on a thin hospital bed, his skin grey and his face still, seen the huge gash on the side of his head, still edged with blood, and he hadn't yet shed a tear? He supposed it was. He had gone back up to the disgustingly sterile room Axel was in, and had gone to his side. He'd brushed a few stray hairs out of his boyfriend's face, noting all of the eight tiny stitches in the wound on his head.

Was that all that was holding him together?

He was on a respirator, the soft _whoosh _and _click_ of the machine filling the room, gently underlined by the sound of the heart monitor. It had driven Roxas near to madness in the few minutes he had been in there, and he had soon left because he was worried that if he stayed and listened to it much longer he would have gone truly nuts.

He unlocked the door to their flat slowly, mechanically, and once he was inside the door, he kicked off the shoes he didn't remember putting on earlier that evening, and let Sora and Riku inside. He shut the door behind him, and once they were all in the living room, he reflexively pushed the play button on the answering machine.

The stiff, mechanical voice informed him that he had one new message, and when it finally clicked on, there were a few seconds of empty noise, followed by the sound of slightly laboured breathing.

"Rox," he heard, and his heart almost stopped. Axel's voice filled the room, and he heard Sora gasp behind him. "Rox, are you there?"

There was another pause, and a few more heavy breaths. "Rox, I'm so sorry. I never meant any of that stuff I said earlier. I'm such an idiot, you know?" There was a pained gasp, and Roxas felt his eyes sting and his heart clench tightly again. "I just wanted to tell you that I love you, okay?" There was a brief chuckle, and Roxas's lips wavered, almost a smile. "I'm such a sap, aren't I?"

Roxas had to bite his tongue to keep himself from responding, from spilling out all the things that suddenly leapt to mind – he was sorry for using up all the toothpaste, he loved the was Axel made pancakes, really, and he actually did enjoy waking up next to him in the morning, a tangle of limbs and blankets that he wouldn't trade for anything in the world. But he couldn't.

"Martine's a mess – I don't think she's good for anything any more. I'm not much better." There was a pause, and Roxas hoped that wasn't where it ended. "I do love you, Roxas. No matter what I say sometimes, I really do. Try not to cry, okay? And I'm sorry that this is how I have to say my goodb-"

The machine cut out, the tinny voice saying that that was the end of the message, did he want to save it, or delete it.

For a moment he stood there, staring blankly at the machine, before a harsh sob welled up in his chest, then another one, and a few moments later he was on his knees, his arms clenched tightly around his chest, sobbing brokenly.

xxx

His head was throbbing and his eyes were gritty when he woke up later that day. He was in bed, with no clear recollection of getting there.

He rolled over, searching the other side of the bed for Axel, before his heart froze in his chest as he remembered what had happened.

'Oh god,' he thought to himself, pulling the pillow next to him over his face. 'What do I do now?'

He could hear voices from somewhere else, so he rolled back over to the edge of the bed, and slowly got to his feet. His head throbbed painfully in protest, and for a moment he sat on the edge of the bed, letting it dissipate slightly before he got to his feet.

He shuffled to the door of the bedroom, before he pushed it open.

Sora and Riku were sat on his sofa looking tired and rumpled, caught up in their own conversation until Riku caught sight of Roxas and looked over at him.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

Roxas paused a moment. How was he feeling. Numb? Empty? Cold?

"I dunno," he settled for, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. "What time is it?"

"Just after 7," Sora told him. "Do you want some dinner?"

Roxas shook his head, before he shuffled over to the answering machine. It wasn't blinking any more, and the little window on it read '00'. A spike of fear his him in the stomach and for a long second he couldn't breathe.

"Did you delete the message?" he asked, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. It barely worked.

On the sofa, Riku and Sora exchanged nervous glance, before Sora looked at him apologetically.

"Fine," Roxas hissed, before he turned on his heel and stormed back into his bedroom.

Sora and Riku sat for a few moments longer, watching the closed door carefully as there was a muffled thud and a loud curse from the next room over.

Less than a minute later the door opened again to reveal a fully dressed Roxas, grasping at his car keys in his hand, his face stormy and determined.

"Where are you going?" Sora asked, springing to his feet as Roxas headed for the door.

"The hospital," he said. "I have to tell him how I feel before it's too late."

"Roxas, wait!"

xxx

He found himself beside the bed again, the same stench of disinfectant filling his nose and tickling the back of his throat when he breathed through his mouth.

The respiratory machine was gone, and the doctor had told him that all they could do now was wait until he woke up – _if_ he woke up.

Roxas sighed and sat down gently in the chair next to the bed, reaching out to grasp Axel's hand gently.

"Axel," he murmured softly. His heart clenched slightly when his boyfriend didn't even twitch. "Axel, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get mad at you, I really didn't. I'm so stupid."

He sighed again. What if this was it? What if this was the last chance he had to talk to him? He steeled himself, before letting out the breath he hadn't even realised he was holding.

"Until today I didn't realise how amazing these past few years have been. It didn't matter what we were doing together, it was just so amazing just being with you all the time." He had to swallow down the lump in his throat to continue. "I know that at first I told you that you were annoying and that I wanted you to go away, but from the moment I met you I just hoped that you'd never leave me by myself again." His eyes began to sting ever so slightly, and his vision began to blur around the edges. "I know that I have Sora, and Riku, and Naminé, but it's not the same. I don't want you to leave me just yet. You can't leave me just yet," he mumbled, reaching up to dash away the tears that had appeared from nowhere to stream down his face.

He had thought he'd cried himself out earlier in the day.

"All my life I felt like I only had a few people who really understood me, you know? And if you leave me, I'll be all alone again. No one will understand me, and no one will love me. And I'll have no one to love," he sniffed, his voice skipping and jumping slightly as he talked. Tears were coursing down his face, and for a few minutes he sat there and let them, gently rubbing his thumb over Axel's still hand.

"I need someone to love. I need to love you. And I need you to love me. I love you, Axel," he said eventually, before he got to his feet and pressed a gentle kiss onto his boyfriend's forehead.

The hand he was holding tensed ever so slightly in his grasp, but Roxas didn't notice. Instead, he sat back down, and waited.

xxx

Roxas moved through the hospital quickly, his hands jammed in his pockets to protect them from the cold outside. He scurried down the corridor quickly, smiling slightly at Aeris as he passed her, before opening the door to Axel's room.

"Morning, sunshine." He looked over to see Axel sitting up in his bed, a wide grin plastered on his face. "And how are we today?" he drawled.

"It's cold out there," Roxas grumbled, unwinding his scarf from around his neck.

Axel patted the bed beside him, the grin not leaving his face for a second. "Well it's roasty-toasty over here, Rox. Come sit with me."

Roxas didn't need to be told twice – he hurried over and clambered up onto the bed beside Axel, nestling in comfortably beside him. It was really quite warm on the bed with him, and Roxas let himself relax against him.

"I might be able to come home tomorrow," Axel murmured, and Roxas felt his voice rumbling through his chest against his head.

The wound on Axel's head had been largely superficial, and it had healed up quite nicely. The hair around it was still short where it had been shaved away, and he had taken great pleasure in showing it to Naminé when she had come to visit. Quite a few of the little cuts and scrapes on his body had healed away, and it was just his leg that would take a long time in healing.

"That's good," Roxas responded, breathing an internal sight of relief. "I love you," he said gently twisting around awkwardly to look up at him.

"I know, Rox," Axel responded. "I love you too."

* * *

Okay, so I know it's stupid. Originally it was gonna be a tragedy piece in which Axel died and Roxas didn't hear the recording until after he got home. But that made me cry, so I changed it to this.

Please review, even if you didn't like it. I wanna know! ^__^


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